OMG!!!! CHASTANET CAN WIN!!!!

It's Flambeau, bitch! Logic and good sense have nothing to do with it.

According to the normal rules of logic, politics and nature, Allen Chastanet should never be able to win any election, anywhere, for anything. The man has no connection with ordinary people anywhere in the world. He has no independent record of achievement. And, in fact, close inspection reveals a magnificient, blazing trail of failures in his wake. St Lucia Jazz never made money, EC Express went bust and a stint as tourism minister that ended with millions and millions spent without any results to show for it.

According to Lorne Theophilus, the new tourism minister, Chastanet should never be able to make it in politics ever again, simply because no one can afford his $48,000 a month phone bills.

But the 21^st century United Workers Party has never made sense. Post-modern Flambeau has made every effort to defy the conventional rules of everything, including good sense. Their math never added up, their vision was fuzzy and frankly speaking, God was not on their side. (Hurricanes and earthquakes being acts of God, one can only conclude that God didn’t like them and did everything in His power to frustrate their government.)

And so, in the spirit of not making any sense at all, Allen Chastanet is now well on his way to becoming the new UWP leader. He is catching up to King in the delegate count, helped by people who understand the delegates. He is winning more support from the executive who are getting tired of Richard Frederick’s domination of whatever faction of Flambeau supports King.

Sitting by the pool at Coco Palm, Chastanet’s initial strategy of wooing select delegates over lunch didn’t seem like the best way to beat King-Frederick. Sparking off a media war with Flambeau’s resident pitbull didn’t help either.

But in a twist of plot, Chastanet now has some real grassroots politicians on his side. And they intend to do for him what he cannot do for himself.

“We will get delegates to admit to themselves that everybody is tired of King’s leadership and even more of Frederick pushing King around, playing bigshot and pretending that he loves Stephenson King,” one Chastanet supporter said.

How did he sneak up on King-Frederick?

“It’s true Chastanet doesn’t connect with the delegates on a sincere level,” said one executive member. “But there is a growing hunger for change in the party so right now, he is the face of change. Nobody else wants to fight this war right now.”

And so, Chastanet’s advantage is simple. Flambeaus want change. They don’t necessarily want real change, but they need the excitement of new leadership right now. They want someone else at the helm, because they think, deep down inside, there was no reason why Flambeau should have lost the last election.

With poule bwas like Spider reportedly agitating for the change, King is going to need a lot more than Richard Frederick to survive Chastanet’s challenge. But King and Frederick still have one more card to play if they lose the leadership. 

They're all laughing at Chastanet. But only one of them will laugh last.

Chastanet is not in Parliament anymore. King could still be leader of the opposition if he plays his cards right. And if Frederick doesn’t throw him under the bus and take the post for himself.